Times Online reports on a "shades of Schiavo" medical-legal controversy brewing in Great Britain:
A mother’s wish to have her disabled teenage daughter’s womb removed looks set to become the next landmark case in the courts to test the ethics of medical intervention where patients cannot decide for themselves.
Disability groups and academics have been united in urging caution in the case in which Alison Thorpe wants doctors to perform a hysterectomy on her daughter Katie,15, who has cerebral palsy and the mental capacity of an 18-month-old child.
Miss Thorpe, of Billericay, Essex, wants the operation to go ahead because she fears that her daughter will not be able to cope with the onset of menstruation and that it would greatly add to the discomfort and stress suffered by her daughter, who is already doubly incontinent. Her aim is to protect Katie from the “pain, discomfort and indignity of menstruation”.
Doctors who have been approached to perform the operate at St John’s Hospital, Chelmsford, are seeking legal advice — and that advice is expected to bring the case before the courts, where Katie would be separately represented by Cafcass, the Children and Family Court Advisory and Support Service.
- Garry J. Wise, Toronto
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